Month: June 2011

My mother said this right as we left for Church today. I’m not a regular churchgoer, in fact I’m not religious at all. I haven’t been to it in 2 years. I only went this past Sunday because my cousins who I hadn’t seen in a long time would be there.

I’ll never understand the appeal of religion but that’s a topic for another day. I’m going to discuss what I observed while I was at the church.

So I got there and I sat on a stairwell waiting for my cousins to arrive. There are two churches in one building. I sat on the stairwell to one of them. I spoke with my brother.

Then this man came. He was visibly angry saying that we were blocking elderly people from using the stairwell. I told him we moved out of the way when people came.

He called me a troublemaker and that I had no respect for anyone. He asked me whether I worshiped up or down which I couldn’t answer because I worship nothing. He grew more angry as I remained calm and asked him what trouble have I caused.

He said this is why you people always get in trouble. He called me an idiot. Then he went inside.

A respectable Christian man.

My cousins arrived sporting pretty cool new hairstyles. We all sat down in the church.

My parent’s church is an environment not suited to hold a social gathering. You just sit there and listen to the pastor spew his beliefs about things. There’s singing but only when they want you to sing. If you don’t sing, you’re going get stared at.

If you don’t stand when they want you to stand, you’re going get stared at.

Nobody ever looks like they are enjoying themselves except my dad. (probably because he hates fun)

Some lady came up and spoke how she’s selling a book.

They had like two collections. Then they sold water bottles for ten dollars.

Is there a reason church can’t be an enjoyable experience? It’s so damn boring. There’s no reason any person should have sit through bible reading after bible reading. Hey Einstein. That book’s been the same for thousands of years! In fact I can read myself so why do I care what you have to say about it!

In short, churches need to do something new if they want the next generation to stay in. There’s been no point in my life that church hasn’t been a waste of time.

Make it enjoyable! Let it be an environment where opinions can be discussed instead of just listening to one guy just ramble about how if you donate 20 dollars, Jesus will pay you back sevenfold.

Make it place where each person can feel like they belong. The pastor said he acts the same way whether there is five people or five thousand. That’s part of the problem. Mix it up! Get interactive!

Also the giant picture of Jesus has got to go. We all know what the dude looks like (or what the white supremacy wants you to believe he looks like). Put up a picture of the church community instead.

Or you can continue for the next thousand years doing the same old while society moves forward.

Back in 2007, a game was released. It had become quite a joke among the gaming community as it had been developed for nine years.

When it finally released, it was a breath of fresh air in the First Person Shooter genre, a genre that has lost all of its originality since the release of Team Fortress 2.

The game had personality and a unique art style that allowed it stand out against the many bland titles being released. Its premise was that in the 1960’s rival companies hired mercenaries to fight for them. These mercenaries accounted for the classes of the game, each viable in its own way.

Each class had a distinct purpose and could kill any other class. There was balance.

Valve, the creator of the company soon announced they would release new updates for free. These updates took months as the company looked at the problems plaguing the classes from completing their objective. They added new weapons that weren’t upgrades. They were sidegrades. Sometimes they were worse and sometimes they were better

Then one day, they decided during the update for two of their classes, the Sniper and the Spy, they would release hats and a drop system.

That update was the beginning of the end of Team Fortress 2 for me. I played the game for one thousand hours and ten hours. That’s a little over 42 days. I loved the game.

The team dynamic was fun. It was funny sometimes. Then the hats dropped. The community soon faced controversy as people used a third party program to idle to gain hats and weapons. Valve didn’t enjoy this and gave a free hat to everyone who didn’t use that program.

Cosmetics soon became the focus of the Team Fortress 2 promotion. You preorder a game, you get a hat. You click on a secret page on the website? You get a hat.

Valve added in a cash shop in order to make profit off of the hats. When I saw the cash shop, I knew my time in Team Fortress 2 would end soon. Cash Shops and Cosmetics were the thing I hated most about MMORPGS like Maplestory. Now I had them in one of my favorite games.

New Weapons soon appeared to promote other games. You gained them by preordering a game, finding them, or buying them in the cash shop. These weapons were not as well thought out as the weapons included in the class packs. They were broken or completely useless.

Hats gave advantages to people if they had complete weapon packs. The new updates ruined the gameplay. It wasn’t as fun anymore.

The breath of fresh air in the FPS Genre was now a model for many things wrong with the video game industry today. Now the game is free, but those who bought the game get premium features.

Nine years the game was in development and it only took them three years to set back all the work they had accomplished.

Goodbye Team Fortress 2. We had good times, but Valve decided that making shitty updates was a good idea

I own a Playstation 3 so I have to watch the Sony Press Conference. Last year wasn’t too good, but this year I felt it was a bit stronger.

The presentation started with a Montage of games currently on the PS3 and PSP. Nothing too special

Sony then came out and apologized for PSN being down as many expected. They showcased Uncharted 3 next which looks very similar to the second one. They played it safe, not straying too far from the formula that led to the success of the second one. Uncharted is the only shooter series I still kinda like. I think it’s still pretty fresh but it’s become a cash cow so that won’t last for long.

Next there was a demo of Resistance 3 which seemed okay. I’m not a big fan of the series.

Playstation move was showcased next with games like NBA 2k 2012, and Dead Men’s Quest. I’m not going to buy a Playstation Move. I don’t support the current trend towards motion gaming.

There was a Starhawk trailer shown and a trailer for a new Sly Cooper, Sly Cooper: Thieves in time.

New Bioshock came on next and I thought it looked better than most shooters on the market today. It has visuals that are different than the brown and bloom evident in shooters today. Though the motion sensing dick sucking that came on next, pissed me off.

A person working on Bioshock said he was called into an office by Sony for badmouthing motion controls. He then said they changed his mind about motion controls because they make his story more accessible to nongamers.

Saints Row 3 was shown as well as a new Star Trek game. SSX will return and tehre will be a New Need for Speed game. Battlefield 3 for Playstation 3 will be bundled with an older Battlefield game. None of this interested me

Playstation Vita was officially debuted with several games for it including Uncharted, Street Fighter X Tekken, and some crap. The price for the Wifi Version was 250 dollars. There will be a 3G version available for people with AT&T for 300 dollars and it comes with a data plan.

E3 Grade: B-

What I liked: PS Vita’s price, Uncharted 3, variety of game genres shown

Overall Impressions: I see that Sony is trying to push 3D and motion sensing. I think they’re useless gimmicks but there’s money in it. I wasn’t bored like I was during Microsoft’s. Not many games I was interested in. I like Uncharted but I think they are pushing them out too fast. They may run out of ideas.

The lack of another Ape Escape greatly disturbed me. They also didn’t announce any new PSP games so I guess the system is done. It was alright. Not great. I wasn’t excited after watching it. PS Vita looks alright.

I don’t own an Xbox 360, but I always watch Microsoft’s press conference to see if it is worth buying. They have never impressed me before. I went in this year with low expectations and they were failed to meet them.

The presentation started with a preview of the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This will probably be the biggest game of the year for the industry. It showed some diving and placing of explosives then some basic shooting on the boat.

I haven’t played Call of Duty since the first Modern Warfare and I barely played that at all. This looked the exact same to me. I didn’t find it impressive and I was quite bored watching the game. If you’re a Call of Duty Fan then you’ll probably end up buying it. If not, this doesn’t look like it’s for you.

I missed some of the presentation because it got really boring so I went to go eat Lunch. I hear Mass Effect 3 was showcased. I don’t know much about that franchise as I have never played it.

The next thing I saw was a new Tom Clancy Ghost Recon game. I realized that this generation of consoles has way too many shooters and they’re all very similar. This was a third person shooter yet it shared the same visuals as Call of Duty so it’s clearly being marketed toward the same crowd.

They showed a Kinect feature for this game that was interesting. You could customize your gun using your voice and motion sensing. I’m not a big fan of motion controls so it didn’t appeal to me. I’ve never seen a game that motion sensing made better.

Next Microsoft spoke about how Xbox live is about more than games. They were going to be adding bing and youtube to Xbox live as well as Minecraft.

Kinect games were featured and they looked terrible. Holy shit. I have never seen shittier games in my life. From the Disneyland Adventure game with the horrible child actors to the Star Wars game, these game were fucking terrible. None of them were good at all. If you own an xbox 360 and don’t like Kinect, sell it. Microsoft doesn’t care about you.

The Star Wars game saddened me because I realized there will never be a new Jedi Knight game.

Gears of War 3 was shown. It seemed similar to the earlier games. It was another shooter so I was bored. Ice-T came out and that was kinda cool.

Halo 4 was their ending game. They showed a small trailer of Master Chief waking up. They also announced that it was the first in a part of a new trilogy on the 360. So if you like Halo, You’ve got 4 new games to get in the future as they announced a remake of Halo 1 due out this November.

E3 Grade: F Minus (See me after class)

What I liked: Nothing

What I didn’t like: Everything. It was bad. I wouldn’t sit through it again. I’m saddened that people were cheering in the crowd for the Kinect garbage. Microsoft milks it franchises until they bleed. We’re on Gears of War 3, Fable 4, and Halo 4 with two more follow ups guaranteed. When are people going to get tired of the same old shit?

I know Kinect is new but it’s also shit. Is it that hard to make good games? I guess when your core market would rather play the same game over and over, there’s no point.

Terrordome, a fighting game based on bringing huge horror icons, is being crippled by movie companies asking their characters to be removed. It’s been worked on for

The game is nonprofit. It’s going to be released for free and yet these companies still want their characters out.

This is a game for fans of horror movies. It’s not possible for a game like this to ever be made because of the licensing issues. They can’t just ignore it? They can’t just let this guy finish it? How does this hurt the company?

The fans will enjoy a free game at no cost to the company. Why do they want this shut down? People make these things because they love the product.

This idea seems good. We should be preventing people from making money off of other’s work. That’s why people copyright what they create.

However through my years on the internet, I have yet to see the harm that copyright infringement brings.

I have seen how it can stunt creativity. In 2007, there was a youtube user known as cyberdragon666. He made videos using video game footage and footage from a TV show. He was showing how well the video game engine was designed as it could reenact scenes from the TV show.

His youtube site was shut down due to copyright infringement. He has left the internet ever since. He spent years working on this and it was all gone with just a click. The TV show had been off air for years. He bought the video game.

How would these videos have damaged the company that owned the copy right? He didn’t upload episodes. He didn’t say he made the television and he wasn’t selling it for money.

I’ve seen so many accounts terminated for this damageless copyright infringement and I can’t see why this is right. It’s free advertisment. People were talking about how good the game was. But somehow it’s seen as wrong by law. How did this come to be?

This shutting down of fan projects isn’t going to make people buy more DVDs or action figures. It’s just crushing the work of people.

Another example would be the Streets of Rage Remake that was built from the ground up and worked on for eight years by a group of devoted fans. Sega didn’t do anything with the franchise during that time. Then they give them a cease and desist letter. Eight years of work shut down. And Sega still isn’t doing anything with their copyright on Streets of Rage.